


I Have Seen Troy

by Thimblerig



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Choking, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Fic and Podfic, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Implied/Referenced Rough Sex, Minor Violence, Podfic, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, The fall of troy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-01-30 12:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: War chuckles low in her throat. “I saw you with Odysseus. What’re you up to, Demon?”Crawly grins against the wood, mouth pulling wide. “It’s been more than a decade for me,” she says. “Tending the queen. Tending the fires. Twirling my little spindle in the women’s quarters all locked up like gold or spice.Birthing babies.”She rolls her eyes, expressively, and shrugs so her captor can feel her body move. “Who wouldn’t sstep outside for a little fun?” The gripping hand loosens just a touch and Crawlyslithers,turning slowly so that her back is to the ship and War’s lean fingers fan across her collar bone. Crawly drapes her limbs elegantly, insouciantly, and lifts her chin. “As to the other, I’m only following my nature. Tempting is what I do…”
Relationships: Crowley & Helen of Troy (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Crowley/War
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019, Good Omens Podfics





	I Have Seen Troy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arcturus_Sinclair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcturus_Sinclair/gifts).

> // While not extreme as these things go, or graphic, this fic does mix sex and violence together. I’ll also add that, as with any story set in the Fall of Troy, it would be unwise to look for a happy ending. Keep yourself safe, yeah?

* * *

Click [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LLWuTYzcNfdrvZKWLuRCvOhqG5Koi-du/view?usp=drivesdk) to stream or download :-) 

* * *

_I am the torch, she saith, and what to me _   
_If the moth die of me? I am the flame_   
_Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see_   
_Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame,_   
_But live with that clear light of perfect fire_   
_Which is to men the death of their desire…_

(Arthur Symons, “Modern Beauty”)

“Snake,” Helen says, and Crawly looks up from her spinning.

“What was it like, to make the stars?”

Crawly’s black brows crinkle where she sits, sitting tucked with knees crooked and elbows askew on a little stool at the Queen of Sparta’s feet, but the other women hidden in this quiet courtyard garden aren’t looking, or listening, either. Helen, for all her legendary beauty and gentle manners, is not _popular_ here at the heart of a city at siege. They gather instead at the sunny end, with the medicinal herbs, where they wield their own distaffs and spindles with pointed indifference and little Astyanax, Andromache’s son, bats a painted wooden ball about.

Crawly opens her mouth to taste the air a little, to check, then holds up a feathery tuft of unspun linen fibre. She twists the fibres together, and twists some more, drawing it out and tightening it - when she releases the tension just a little, the fibre doubles up against itself, spiralling and winding, and suddenly: thread. “Like that,” she says, “only with, you know, sky stuff.”

Helen nods, silently. They’ve been together too long for many secrets, these two, the queen and the waiting-woman, and if one of those two is an ancient spirit, well. They get along.

The light is dimming, the pale sky shading into a tincture of wine. The hint of shouting heard faintly through the walls dies quietly: the fighting done for the day. Andromache’s son bats his painted ball sort-of-but-not-quite accidentally towards Helen with her candle-bright hair and her lanky, funny waiting-woman, and is tugged back by his mother’s swift fingers.

"Wife."

Helen's husband, Beautiful Paris, stands in the arch that leads into their walled garden. He is as slender as he always was, but his looks are going. Crawly can count the crow's-feet around his large doe eyes from here. "Come to bed, Wife."

Crawly stretches dramatically and yawns a little. The woman she is bound to serve rests a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You should go off for a while,” says Helen. “My faithful servant deserves her rest.” She smiles serenely.

* * *

“I just want to go _home,”_ Odysseus mutters. He tips his head forward, covered with his mantle, and rests his bearded chin against his chest. Speaking into his wine-jar more than anything, he says, with great feeling, “I miss my wife.”

“I feel you.” Crawly drinks deep from her own jar. The wine is hot and strong, not like the watered piss that is all to be found inside the walls. She stares into the fire, burning hot and steady over a pile of stacked together driftwood, the colours shifting into greens and blues with the salt of it. It is a clear night, stars bright and present and unblinking. “Beautiful stars.”

“My son’ll be ten now. You know that? He’ll have learned to ride without me.”

“Yeah, they do that. Blink a bit an’ they’ve shot up, shot up five feet or so. Tricky little buggers, children.”

“Even bloody Helen, up there in the city, she had a kid before she came here. Think she misses it?”

“All the ssodding time,” Crawly mutters.

“What was that?” Odysseus asks, his sea-dark eyes sliding to look at her sidelong.

“I said it’ss bloody good wine,” Crawly says blandly. She shifts her dark himation more demurely over her head and thinks bland thoughts at Odysseus. She’s not really supposed to be here but he doesn’t need to know that - just another woman of the war camp, captive or here for the work it doesn’t matter. She’s not dressed like anyone important.

Crawly’s had a watching brief on Helen for eleven years now. She’s been wearing the skin of a servant for all of them: clothing dull, eyes low, voice lower. And she’s been loyal for all of them, too - tenaciously loyal, sit-at-your-feet loyal. If there’s a silver band at her throat it’s for status more than anything. Crawly is, after all, the slave of royalty.

But the Greeks have better wine. There’s a side door out, if you know where to look and don’t mind squirming a bit. And she’s been stuck at the centre of this so long she’s about ready to rip her skin off and burn it in that fire on the beach. Up in smoke, all the shades and signs of her current self burning brilliant colours. Yeah. That’d be pretty.

“You just need to be a bit smart about this,” she tells the Greek, and takes another swig of sweet and burning liquor. “There’s an oath that binds you here, fine, I get it, oaths are important. But there’s more ways to finish an oath than breaking down the walls. Just… you know. Find some wiggle room and get yourself off home.”

“Wiggle room,” the Greek repeats, looking thoughtful. “Who were you, again?”

“No-one of importance,” Crawly tells him.

“Hm.”

She sways up then, legs gone liquid with the wine, and slithers - _walks_ off. The surf is hissing softly along the shore; the breeze is cool against wine-hot cheeks. She could shift herself into a snake right now, she thinks. Change her skin and slip into the water and just _go…_

But she’s always been a bit too fond of bright things, of flaming things. And oh, how Helen is bright.

Something grabs her by the neck.

* * *

It doesn’t smell human. It’s not Hastur or Ligur either: their corporations have no subtlety at all in this violent age. The hand that grabs her by the neck and slams her forward, rough, against the brine-soaked wood of a beached ship is small, strong, and belongs to a much shorter person.

_ “Eldest,”_ a voice whispers, sweet as honey-wine, rasping like the burn in the back of the throat as the liquid goes down.

“Not quite.” Crawly rasps a bit herself, crammed up against the wood, and shifting slightly as her silver collar digs uncomfortably into her skin. She darts eyes to the side and glimpses the brightly patterned trousers of one of the Amazon warriors that fight with the Greeks, and a flash of forest-fire hair. She makes an educated guess - “Nice to meet you, Lady War.” War’s hand loosens in answer.

“You hung the stars in the sky.”

“A lot of angels did that, you’re not looking at anyone special here.”

War chuckles low in her throat. “I saw you with Odysseus. What’re you up to, Demon?”

Crawly grins against the wood, mouth pulling wide. “It’s been more than a decade for me,” she says. “Tending the queen. Tending the fires. Twirling my little spindle in the women’s quarters all locked up like gold or spice. _Birthing babies.”_ She rolls her eyes, expressively, and shrugs so her captor can feel her body move. “Who wouldn’t sstep outside for a little fun?” The gripping hand loosens just a touch and Crawly _slithers,_ turning slowly so that her back is to the ship and War’s lean fingers fan across her collar bone. Crawly drapes her limbs elegantly, insouciantly, and lifts her chin. “As to the other, I’m only following my nature. Tempting is what I do…”

The Amazon is staring at her eyes, still for the moment, and implacable. Crawly is vividly aware of the weight of the hand at her throat - the heat of it, and the force barely held in check. Her pulse races. (She has always loved bright, fierce things.) She lowers her snake-slit eyes a little, fluttering the lashes _just so,_ and smiles.

“Are you trying to seduce me?” the Amazon asks, disbelieving. “I’m _War:_ I take what I want.”

Crawly’s lips widen into a grin.

* * *

The anthropomorphic personification of War makes love like a charioteer, and like the spirited horses that draw her chariot, like _one drink too many_ and _every choice you’ll regret in the morning,_ like a rushing wave… Around them the fractious war camp quietens, ignored and forgotten, as the pair lose themselves in darkness and heat.

Crawly tips her head back, after, tasting salt and iron, the animal musk of the wolfskins they bed in, and a trace of blood from where she had bitten her lover’s shoulder perhaps a little too hard. In the darkness, War curls tighter into the demon, draping a languid arm over Crawly’s ribs and shifting her hand to rest on one scant breast and tease the nipple lightly with her thumb. Crawly threads her fingers into War’s sweat-damp hair and hums as War nuzzles her throat. She nudges the silver band with her nose and kisses the tender skin underneath, and Crawly sighs.

“What was it like, making the stars?” War asks drowsily.

After a time, Crawly says, “It’s nothing. There’s nearly nothing in the void, it’s dark and peaceful. And you tug on a few atoms here, and a few atoms there. You… _encourage_ them. And when they’re all squirming and hopping about together you cram a couple together a bit too hard and they start to fight instead of dance. And… boom. Everlasting fire.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. Why?”

Crawly feels War breathe slowly. She doesn’t need to - neither of them do - but old habits die hard. “I’m too young to know Heaven,” War says after a while. “The first time, the first war, there wasn’t a word for Me, and so I wasn’t. I spring from the heart of Humanity.”

“You poor, fragile, tender baby,” Crawly coos. War nips the skin of neck and the demon hisses. “Do that again,” she whispers.

“Screw you.”

“Please.”

Later, Crawly admits, “I can’t tell you much, about the mess Upstairs. Fell early; fell hard. After that I was just trying to stay alive. Not a fighter, me.”

“Right.”

Crawly shrugs. She has a lot of shoulder, and it’s an impressive feat.

“Stay a little longer?” asks War.

“... Yeah, alright.”

She’s back with her gentle mistress by morning light.

* * *

It’s weeks later, on a full moon night, that Crawly tip-toes around a bloody great wooden statue of a horse parked in the open square of the city, dwarfed by the towering walls, but big enough. It’s huge, roughly carved, ugly, and smells of the brine-soaked wood it was made from. As sacrifices to gods go, bigger is usually better. Crawly knows _that._ But she hates it on sight.

And she has orders not to interfere. Ah, what the He-, the Hea-, the Whatever, tempting is what she _does,_ there’s as much point blaming a cat for hunting as Crawly from tempting. Right? Right. She sends out a whisper, a wheedling little string of language that anyone inside might hear, to make them think of home, and family, and -

Something grabs at the back of her neck and she swears to herself silently before trying to wriggle away, then the hand shifts, gentle, to the point of her shoulder. Crawly turns, and sees Helen, all muffled up in the dull black of a servant, her candle-bright hair covered with one of Crawly’s himations.

“Do you really think that would work?” Helen asks, her light-coloured eyes very grave.

Crawly shrugs. “If there’s men in there, getting them to move too early might, you know, screw things up. I’m a chaos and disorder kind of a person.”

Helen’s small hand shifts, touching the sharp cheekbone of her servant. “Pity,” she says softly. Then she moves, inexorably slow - faster than blinking - and grips the demon by the throat. “I think I’d rather watch this city _burn."_

Crawly gurgles.

Helen’s muffling himation falls away, and as it does her fair hair captures light from one of the nearby watch-fires, shifting from the familiar brightness of a candle or a hearth to the deep aching red of a furnace. “If that’s all right with you,” War says pleasantly.

“Were you always…” croaks Crawly, “alwayss the queen?” She scrapes another breath. “Or just… sstepping in for a… sspell?”

War shrugs, not as impressively as the demon, but well enough. “I don’t think it matters, do you?” She watches Crawly a moment longer. “I was born from the heart of Humanity,” she says, stepping in close, body pressed against hot body. “If not for your first temptation, I would not exist. For that I thank you. Stay out of my way, Starmaker, and I’ll let you live.”

“Fffuck,” whispers Crawly.

War drags the demon's head down, and with her breath of iron and liquor kisses Crawly on the mouth. A sharp sting as blood is drawn. And War whispers, “Be seeing you, sweet thing.”

* * *

This is how you make a star. There’s not much trick to it. Squeeze something together and twist it all about and _tighten_ against and with its nature until it can’t quite bear to be itself anymore.

Crawly tiptoes lightly on the edge of the wall, looking out over the thread of refugees slipping out through her little side door. She teeters further along the edge until she stands looking over the ocean, its hissing waves lit blaring red by the fires. Grinning sharply, showing all her teeth, she teeters - wobbles - slips, falling like a flung stone into the firelit water and the darkness beneath.

It is hours before the demon steps out. He shakes the water off himself briskly, points himself nowhere, and starts walking.

_I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen _   
_Troy burn, and the most loving knight lie dead._   
_The world has been my mirror, time has been_   
_My breath upon the glass; and men have said,_   
_Age after age, in rapture and despair,_   
_Love's poor few words, before my image there..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // There are many conflicting stories about the siege of Troy - who lives, dies, who does the killing and why. In particular, the character of Helen veers wildly. Some put it that she slipped about the Trojan Horse trying to lure out the men inside; others that she led a Bacchanalian procession as an excuse to signal the invading Greeks with a lit fire. I’ve even seen a version where she wasn’t there at all but cooling her heels in Egypt while a spirit took on her semblance throughout the war. It was Old Times: spirits and gods could do that. In any case, I thought I’d play with that ambivalence a little bit.
> 
> The etymology of her name is also a bit hazy, but is sometimes interpreted as “torch”, “shining one”, “bright”. I’m interpreting that as unusually fair-haired. 
> 
> // In contrast with 20/21C depictions of Amazons, the Ancient Greeks usually drew them wearing brightly patterned trousers - an eye-catching detail for a culture that lived in open tunics and draped cloth. There’s a link here for the Scythian horseback archers that may have inspired the legend: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-amazons-scythians-hunger-games-herodotus-ice-princess-tattoo-cannabis/


End file.
